Part 221 of the collection · Teacher 42 of 53: Light, Lord of the Devas (2 of ~?) · Fascicle 56 of 60 · T278

Unobstructed-Mindfulness Pure Adornment

Light, Lord of the Devas, names her own liberation and begins an account reaching back to a kalpa named Blue Lotus, in which she made offerings to Ganges-sand tathāgatas — attending, guarding, and serving each one from the very moment of their going-forth, remembering every stage of their lives without the smallest gap.

Translator: Ru-Yi Meditation Center Status: Part 221 of 454 complete Source: Taishō T278, 入法界品第三十四之十四 (Buddhabhadra, Eastern Jin) Reading notes after Fazang's 華嚴經探玄記 (T1733)

A Kalpa Named Blue Lotus, Ganges-Sand Buddhas Attended in Full

Chinese Source

「天女答言:「善男子!我得菩薩解脫,名無礙念清淨莊嚴。善男子!我念過去有最勝劫,名青蓮華。我於彼劫中,供養恒河沙等諸佛如來。彼諸如來從初出家,我皆瞻奉、守護、供養,造僧伽藍營辦什物。又彼諸佛從為菩薩住母胎時,誕生之時,行七步時,大師子吼時,住童子位在宮中時,向菩提樹成正覺時,轉正法輪、現佛神變、教化調伏眾生之時,如是一切諸所作事,從初發心乃至法盡,我皆明憶無有遺餘,常現在前,念持不忘。」

Ru-Yi Translation

The goddess answered, saying: "Good man, I have attained the bodhisattva's own liberation named Unobstructed-Mindfulness Pure Adornment. Good man, I recall that in ages past there was a supreme kalpa named Blue Lotus. Within that kalpa, I made offerings to tathāgatas as numerous as the sands of the Ganges. From the very moment of their going forth from the household life, I attended and revered every one of them, guarded and made offerings to them, built monasteries for them, and prepared and managed their every requisite. Further, from the time each of those buddhas, while still a bodhisattva, dwelt within his mother's own womb, at the time of his birth, at the time he took his seven steps, at the time of his great lion's roar, at the time he dwelt in his own palace in the station of a young prince, at the time he approached the bodhi-tree and attained the most correct awakening, at the time he turned the wheel of the true Dharma, manifested a buddha's own spiritual transformations, and taught and subdued sentient beings — all such matters as these, from his very first raising of the mind of awakening until the Dharma itself came to its end, I remembered clearly, without the smallest thing left out, ever present before me, held in mind and never forgotten."

Reading note — after Fazang

Her liberation's own name, Unobstructed-Mindfulness Pure Adornment (無礙念清淨莊嚴), is demonstrated rather than merely asserted in this very passage: what she describes is not simply devotion but total, unbroken recall — every stage of every buddha's own life, from conception through the Dharma's eventual disappearance, held in mind without a single gap. Fazang reads this comprehensiveness of memory as itself the content of "unobstructed" (無礙): a mindfulness that meets no barrier of time, however vast the span it must hold.

Part 221 In Progress

The first kalpa of her account, Blue Lotus, is now told in full. Part 222 continues with further kalpas — Good Ground, Sublime Virtue, and more — each with its own count of buddhas served.

Continue to Part 222 →